Summary
Chapter 3 opens with a description of the Salvation Army compound in Lenny’s neighborhood. A marching band emerges from the gates, which Lenny describes as a “red and white caterpillar.” She notes the funny image of the very pale hands and faces of the English exposed to the sun. Lenny is watching the march with Ayah, who is leaning attractively against a gatepost. Even the head of the marching band notices her and stares.
Lenny is no longer put in the stroller when they visit Godmother’s house. However, sometimes on longer walks up Queens Road to the park, she is pushed. Lenny loves this. She describes a statue of Queen Victoria there, which “imposes the English Raj in the park.” Lenny sits in the park with the hotel cook, the gardener of the Government House, and a masseur (someone who gives massages) who is muscular and attractive. The Ice-candy-man is also there in the park selling popsicles. Lenny takes advantage of Ayah’s many admirers to get things: candy, a massage, and so on.
Lenny watches Ayah and the masseur flirt. She has also seen them together late at night at home when they meet for sex. She has noticed the way his well-skilled fingers enter Ayah’s body. Lenny often notices Ayah’s admirers coming at night and sneaking off. Lenny covers for her and never says anything about these night visits. She likes some of these admirers more than others. The gardener is boring because he only comes to talk. Then Lenny describes a dream of her mother and father being talkative and playful together.
Lenny has a cousin who is a bit older than her. One day he comes over to show her his marbles. He then says that he has recently had a hernia operation and offers to show his scar. He pulls down his pants and shows the scar on his genitals and Lenny touches it. He then says that he will have his tonsils removed too. Lenny looks at his neck. She thinks: “I visualize a red, scalloped scar running from ear to ear. It is a premonition.”
The next day she is playing with her cousin again. He wants to show her something. He points to an electric socket and says “Put your finger there and see what happens.” Lenny is shocked by the AC current and learns an important lesson about gullibility.
Lenny describes her “electricaunt,” a “resourceful widow” who moves about quickly which is why she is called “Bijli,” a word meaning both “electricity” and “lightening” in various Indian languages. Her aunt is obsessed with navy blue and many parts of her house have this color.
Lenny has a bad dream, “the first nightmare that connects me to the pain of others.” She hears a siren coming from the Salvation Army. The marching band, that “long khaki caterpillar,” emerges from the gates again. However, this time it “metamorphoses into a single German soldier on a motorcycle.” The soldier drives off and stops outside of her aunt’s house. He is brutal, with black gloves and white hands. He chases after Lenny.
Lenny describes various bogeymen in India, such as witches who eat lost children, and angry bears. For her personally, there is the lion at the zoo. But this is the first time she is dreaming of an “immaculate Nazi soldier.”
In another nightmare from childhood, she is lying in bed as her family moves around the house. Men in uniforms come and slice off the hands and legs of children. No one does anything. Lenny too is dismembered.
Analysis
Lenny is very aware of the sex lives of the adults around her, particularly Ayah. She describes the smell of sex, a “fragrance of earth and grass” that gives clues into the mysteries of life. Sex is an important force animating the world.
This chapter also has more foreshadowing about the violence to come after India gains its independence and the two countries of India and Pakistan are separated. Lenny being shocked by the electric current, imagining her cousin being cut across the neck, and her bad dreams are all part of this foreshadowing. In particular, the dream of the Salvation Army marching band becoming a Nazi soldier is significant. During World War II, the British viceroy of India followed Britain in declaring war on Germany. Though no Indian leaders were consulted about this decision, many Indians were sent off to be soldiers in the war. Gandhi and the Indian National Congress began to argue that India should be rewarded with independence for its cooperation in the war effort. The British marching band becoming a German soldier shows that the two sides of the war are in some respects the same, from the Indian perspective. The Nazi also represents the upcoming violence that will happen within India with Partition. As with her next nightmare of children being dismembered, Lenny is most concerned that violence can occur with no one doing anything to stop it. As Lenny’s arms and legs are cut off in her dream, she says: “I feel no pain. Only an abysmal sense of loss—and a chilling horror that no one is concerned by what’s happening.” This foreshadows the violence of Partition, during which violence broke out between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs.
